Another thing is just I wonder: if a strong enough pronatalist argument was presented to me maybe that in itself would make me excited enough to have kids. I do adapt enthusiastically to EA arguments telling me to donate here vs there, to change my career etc. Though naturally, sometimes I adapt with resistance and begrudgingly. I wonder if there is some pronatalist argument I haven’t heard that will firmly slot me into the former group where I adapt enthusiastically.
But as you point out, maybe I don’t even need to stress too much about merely being ‘not excited’ if a good enough pronatalist argument convinces me I should have kids. This is something I’d love to get feedback on from EAs who have kids (and I can think of zero EAs in my social circle that have kids). Jeff Kaufman, do you have kids of your own that makes you more confident in your statement?
(meta-note: I don’t know if it is possible to tag someone in a comment to notify them they have been mentioned)
Cornelis—from my evolutionary psychologist perspective, a big difference between becoming a parent and becoming a super-generous donor, is that we’ve evolved for 70 million years to be good mammalian mothers, and for about 3 million years to be good, high-investing, hominid fathers. So there are many evolved adaptations for parenting just waiting to get switched on after kids arrive, that make parenting feel generally rewarding. (Likewise, kids evolved to be cute, charming, and interesting to their parents, so it’s a coevolutionary interaction.)
The basic problem is that with contraception, we’re not in a situation where kids just start popping out after we start falling in love and having sex, so many young people don’t have the experience of feeling their parental adaptations get activated automatically by kids arriving. So there were quite limited selection pressures to ‘want kids’ before kids arrived.
Another thing is just I wonder: if a strong enough pronatalist argument was presented to me maybe that in itself would make me excited enough to have kids. I do adapt enthusiastically to EA arguments telling me to donate here vs there, to change my career etc. Though naturally, sometimes I adapt with resistance and begrudgingly. I wonder if there is some pronatalist argument I haven’t heard that will firmly slot me into the former group where I adapt enthusiastically.
But as you point out, maybe I don’t even need to stress too much about merely being ‘not excited’ if a good enough pronatalist argument convinces me I should have kids. This is something I’d love to get feedback on from EAs who have kids (and I can think of zero EAs in my social circle that have kids). Jeff Kaufman, do you have kids of your own that makes you more confident in your statement?
(meta-note: I don’t know if it is possible to tag someone in a comment to notify them they have been mentioned)
Three kids: 8y, 6y, and 15m
Happened to see it ;)
Cornelis—from my evolutionary psychologist perspective, a big difference between becoming a parent and becoming a super-generous donor, is that we’ve evolved for 70 million years to be good mammalian mothers, and for about 3 million years to be good, high-investing, hominid fathers. So there are many evolved adaptations for parenting just waiting to get switched on after kids arrive, that make parenting feel generally rewarding. (Likewise, kids evolved to be cute, charming, and interesting to their parents, so it’s a coevolutionary interaction.)
The basic problem is that with contraception, we’re not in a situation where kids just start popping out after we start falling in love and having sex, so many young people don’t have the experience of feeling their parental adaptations get activated automatically by kids arriving. So there were quite limited selection pressures to ‘want kids’ before kids arrived.